Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Saturday

Gus Carter Gus Carter

Inside the Tory party’s China split

Back in 2005, Boris Johnson wrote that among geopolitical gloomsters, China was becoming the ‘fashionable new dread’. They were obsessed with the idea that this ‘incubator of strange diseases’ was angling to become ‘the next world superpower’ — ‘China will not dominate the globe’ he concluded. The China question is now the most fashionable new dread in Boris Johnson’s Tory party. Within the space of a few short years, the country has gone from a mid-level concern, via Cameron and Osborne’s ‘golden era’ to becoming an existential rival. And where once the country was of interest only to a few dusty old Sinologists, now it is the cause célèbre for

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Turbulence in Downing Street as another Vote Leave aide departs

Boris Johnson has lost a longstanding aide from 10 Downing Street this evening with Oliver Lewis quitting as head of the Union unit. Lewis had only been appointed to the job two weeks ago having previously worked on the Brexit negotiations. His resignation comes after a week of bubbling tensions in No. 10 over recent personnel changes.  Last Friday, Johnson announced that Simone Finn would be his deputy chief of staff and former Michael Gove aide Henry Newman his new senior adviser. These appointments were the first significant moves since Dan Rosenfield was named chief of staff in the wake of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain’s departure. The Vote Leave duo left their roles late

Professor Angus Dalgleish

The NHS is still in desperate need of reform

Along with many of my colleagues, I have been arguing for years that the current structure of the NHS cannot survive. Giving the health service endless money won’t make a significant difference, unless its core structures are changed. It is therefore very interesting to see that Matt Hancock, in the middle of the pandemic, has unveiled a package of major changes to healthcare, the essence of which is to reverse the Lansley reforms. One of the reforms the health secretary is taking aim at is the purchaser/provider split, which I have identified in the past as one of the ‘four crumbling pillars of the NHS’. The split involves regional panels

Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

Does Nicola Sturgeon really want to fly the EU flag?

The news that Nicola Sturgeon has asked for the EU flag to be flown every day from the Scottish Parliament building won’t come as a surprise to those familiar with her much-documented Europhilia. Indeed, when Britain was edging ahead in the vaccine race, she threatened to publish confidential information about the UK’s vaccine supply in order to offer support to Brussels, potentially undermining our vaccine deals. The fact that she was prepared to do this in order to cosy up to the EU tells you everything you need to know about the SNP’s particular brand of nationalism. What’s most bizarre about Sturgeon’s focus on the EU is that she lives

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Boris tries to mute Angela Merkel

Boris Johnson today hosted a virtual meeting of the G7, with representatives dialling in from around the world to discuss the equitable distribution of vaccine doses. But while the group may claim to represent almost half of the world’s GDP, it’s clear the heads of state are still struggling with Zoom as much as everyone else. At the meeting, Boris Johnson’s opening remarks were interrupted by a chatting Angela Merkel, leading the PM to call for the German Chancellor to be muted.  Mr S isn’t sure that will go down well in Berlin… Watch here:

Steven Fielding

Is ‘Starmerism’ an empty project?

Keir Starmer is an extremely methodical politician. Like the mills of God, he might grind slow, but he grinds exceedingly small. Once the Labour leader sets his mind to an objective – such as ridding his party of the taint of anti-Semitism – he is implacable. Just ask the Corbynite wing of the party, who have seen Corbyn suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party and Rebecca Long-Bailey exiled to the backbenches. In the same way Starmer has unremittingly set out to win back those Red Wall voters Labour lost to Boris Johnson in the 2019 general election. We have consequently heard much of his belief in the family and of

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Has Macron stolen Boris’s G7 thunder?

10 min listen

Emmanuel Macron has said wealthy nations should begin donating up to five per cent of their vaccines to Africa. It comes as Boris Johnson hosts a virtual G7 today – Joe Biden’s first multilateral meeting. Has the French president stolen Boris’s thunder? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Thursday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Power jab: the rise of vaccine diplomacy

44 min listen

How are China and Russia getting ahead in the great game of vaccine diplomacy? (00:50) Has the US press lost its way? (11:30) Why is Anglo-Saxon history making a comeback? (27:20) With The Spectator‘s broadcast editor Cindy Yu; journalist Owen Matthews; Harper’s publisher Rick MacArthur; The Washington Post‘s media critic Erik Wemple; journalist Dan Hitchens; and Sutton Hoo archaeologist Professor Martin Craver. Presented by Lara Prendergast. Produced by Max Jeffery and Matt Taylor.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Why Starmer is no modern day Beveridge

15 min listen

Today’s speech from the Labour leader was billed to be ‘Beveridge-style’. On the podcast, Kate Andrews tells Katy Balls and James Forsyth why it was nothing of the sort, and they strategise what Starmer should have said.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can Keir Starmer cut through?

It’s been a difficult few weeks for Sir Keir Starmer with left-leaning commentators and MPs lining up to criticise the Labour leader. Among recent complaints include the idea that Starmer plays it too safe, has not held the Tories to account despite the high Covid death toll and has failed to make much of an impression on the general public. The polls also point to problems – with Savanta ComRes finding Boris Johnson has had a 5 point rise on the question of best Prime Minister in its monthly political tracker. Today Starmer attempted to turn the page by setting out his approach on the economy. As Kate reports on Coffee House, this included the establishment of ‘British

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The EU needs to stop punishing Britain for Brexit

There have always been those on the European side who believe that for the EU project to succeed, Brexit must fail and must be seen to fail. So it is a problem that the first major act of Brexit Britain — going its own way to obtain and approve vaccines — appears to have been a success. For this reason, EU leaders must cast doubt on the achievement. As I say in the magazine this week, look at how Clément Beaune, Macron’s Europe Minister, went out of his way to tweet out his criticisms of the UK approach. (To be fair, there is a Brexiteer version of this hostile sentiment.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Starmer’s fundamental economic mistake

Keir Starmer’s speech on economic recovery, delivered at Labour’s Southside HQ on Thursday, was hyped as one of the most pivotal moments of his leadership so far. A Labour insider told Politico it had been ‘six months in the making with a huge amount of work going into it’. It was designed to establish a clear ‘fork in the road’ between the Conservatives’ and Labour’s economic visions, both in the short term — leading up to the Budget next month — but also in the future, as Starmer pledged to shape the economy ‘to look utterly unlike the past’. But for a speech that was supposedly months in the making,

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Keir Starmer is attacking a Tory party that no longer exists

There has been a bit of a commentariat pile-on against Starmer in the last couple of weeks; not just from the usual suspects but from centrist types who might normally be supportive of the Labour leader. Given that as background, one would have hoped that Keir Starmer would have used his speech today on a ‘New Chapter for Britain’ to launch something of a comeback. Unfortunately, the speech didn’t really work as I think it was intended. On the whole, it felt a little like something the Labour leader had been chivvied into delivering due to recent negative press, as opposed to a set of ideas that had ripened enough

Alex Massie Alex Massie

There is something rotten in Scottish politics

It is now two years since Nicola Sturgeon accepted the need for a parliamentary inquiry into how, and why, her government’s investigation into Alex Salmond was so thoroughly tainted by apparent bias it was unlawful.   Ever since then, she has repeatedly promised that both she and her government will fully co-operate with the Holyrood committee — set up to investigate the Scottish government’s response to claims of sexual misconduct against her predecessor. Many hollow promises have been made in the still-short history of the Scottish parliament but few have been emptier than this.   It is necessary to insist upon what the committee is not investigating: it takes no view on

The Spectator

Vaccines are working – so why isn’t society reopening?

When the Prime Minister sets out his ‘roadmap’ for easing Covid restrictions on Monday, it will be against a backdrop that is both better and worse than could have been imagined six months ago. Worse because we have gone on to suffer a second wave of the disease that has seen almost as much excess death as the first wave. But better in the sense that we have vaccines that are in use and more effective than many hoped, with first doses given to 15 million people — almost a third of the adult population. On several occasions last year, Boris Johnson referred to vaccines as the cavalry coming over

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It is time to make friends with the EU

On Monday morning, Clément Beaune, Emmanuel Macron’s Europe Minister, clipped out the section of his media interview criticising Britain’s vaccination strategy and posted it on Twitter. He declared: ‘What is happening in the UK is not something I envy. It is a strategy of massive acceleration which also means taking more risks because the Covid situation is much worse there.’ Such remarks are becoming something of a habit for Beaune. He fired off tweets lambasting Brexit in the days after the deal was done and grinned broadly in an interview this year when he was questioned about reports that British cabinet ministers had asked him to tone it down on

Wednesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What’s behind David Frost’s promotion?

The news that David Frost is to be a Minister of State in the Cabinet Office and full member of cabinet has set the cat among the pigeons in Westminster this evening. The UK’s lead Brexit negotiator had previously been lined up to be national security adviser. However, it was eventually decided that he did not have the right experience to take on the role and he was instead appointed as Johnson’s representative on Brexit and International Policy. That Frost is to join the cabinet is a significant promotion — and it’s a promotion that is already causing ripples across government with various briefings doing the rounds on reported unrest in Downing Street.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Frost will need to learn to work with the EU

Boris Johnson has made his Brexit negotiator David Frost a full member of the Cabinet and the UK chair of both the partnership council, which manages the UK/EU trade deal, and the joint committee, which handles the Northern Ireland protocol. Frost’s appointment is a recognition that someone is needed at the heart of government to handle the EU relationship – that it can’t be treated as simply a Foreign Office matter, and that it needs to be a full-time job (Michael Gove had previously been the UK chair of these committees). The challenge for Frost will be to get out of the negotiations mindset. The withdrawal negotiations and the trade

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Labour’s damning silence on Brexit

The Labour party has updated the old metaphysical question: ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’ It ought to be protesting on behalf of all who are suffering because of Brexit. It ought to be throwing the government’s broken promises back at it and ramming home the message that voters cannot trust Boris Johnson. And yet, listen as hard you like, you cannot hear a sound. If no one can hear Labour opposing, is it really an opposition? The Brexit debacle is drowning once viable business sectors in bureaucracy and threatening what peace and prosperity Northern Ireland